


Come Back

by starlore



Category: Bleach
Genre: (sort of), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-18
Updated: 2016-05-18
Packaged: 2018-06-09 04:14:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6889474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starlore/pseuds/starlore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short-ish drabble I wrote from a prompt on tumblr:</p><p>"Send me a “Come back” and I’ll write a drabble about character asking the other to return (they parted after a fight, the other has been missing for a while, etc)"</p><p>Keigo's tired of being alone while Ichigo is off being a hero.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Come Back

Keigo sometimes wished he was still blissfully ignorant. He wished he could claim to be unaware of Ichigo’s double life or the trouble it brought with it. He wished he could believe the lies doled out to him like a placebo, meant to give him some sense of reassurance. Ichigo lied out of habit, out of blind hope that Keigo would take it as a sense of aloofness to the situation (clearly it wasn’t that serious if he didn’t tell him the truth!), but it didn’t work anymore. Keigo was too entrenched in that world, for as detached as he was from it. He could feel the fluctuations in reiatsu; he _knew_  things were happening and he was _helpless_  to stop them. He had no pull or influence whatsoever. So he wished he was still blind to those things. But he wasn’t, and he never would be again.

So, no, Ichigo _wasn’t_  on a trip, he _wasn’t_  busy with schoolwork or clubs or family. He was off in that world, fighting things Keigo couldn’t fathom. It made him angry. It never used to. Keigo simply accepted it as Ichigo being Ichigo, as him doing what he felt was best. But that was before he’d come to develop such strong feelings for him, before he could confidently say that no one else mattered to him as much as Ichigo did. Now, instead of busying himself with meaningless things in an attempt to distract himself from the inevitable, he sat and stewed. 

It was so damn _hard_. Locking himself away in his bedroom, isolating himself, was actively harming his outlook and his state of mind. But he couldn’t pretend, not like Ichigo could. Not like everyone else could. Rather than mope around and draw direct attention to himself, he curled into his blankets on his too-empty bed, stared off at the wall across the way. His mind was blank. His chest hurt. But he couldn’t cry.

Exhaling softly, he shifted on the bed and grabbed his phone from the nightstand. He opened it, scrolled through the snapshots he’d taken over the course of the past few months. Ichigo in mid-bite of some kind of dessert (chocolate, naturally), completely unaware that a camera had been turned on him. The next shot was of his disgruntled, and slightly embarrassed, expression upon realizing Keigo’s impish activities. Another picture of Ichigo, playing the PlayStation, one of Keigo making a silly face, pictures of the sky, pictures of the park…

…and a picture of them together, at the beach. 

Keigo’s eyes drifted across it. Ichigo had actually smiled in this one, though Keigo could see the slight sheepish discomfort in the uneven curl of his lips. The ocean was behind them, Keigo was grinning from ear to ear. His arm was slung around Ichigo’s shoulders, Ichigo’s hand was hovering, though Keigo knew that it came to rest on his hip once the digital shutter had captured their photo.

Keigo closed his eyes. He swallowed. It felt like ages ago since it was taken, but it had only been two weeks. Exiting out of the gallery, Keigo pulled up Ichigo’s contact page, opened a new text message. He started typing, chewing on his lower lip. He knew Ichigo wouldn’t have his phone on him; he probably wouldn’t see the message until he was done doing whatever it was he was doing in Soul Society. But it helped. It helped typing those two words to him, pretending he’d see them and think of him, knowing how much he missed him.

“ _Come back_.”


End file.
